Towards a Sustainable Future in the Age of Polycrisis
Jani Siirilä and Arto O. Salonen
The authors explore a holistic picture of a social transformation process to address the challenges of the age of polycrisis.
Polycrisis Resource Library
The Polycrisis Resource Library is a growing collection of media that help to understand polycrisis, develop strategies to address polycrisis, and build a field of polycrisis analysis.
Evaluation in the Polycrisis Epoch
Michael Quinn Patton
Michael Quinn Patton argues that good public policy evaluation is crucial for addressing the global polycrisis, but requires an informed citizenry. It is thus presently “engaged in a battle against…
Polycrisis Research and Analysis Roadmap
Michael Lawrence, Megan Shipman, Scott Janzwood, Constantin Arnscheidt, Jonathan Donges, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Christian Otto, Pia-Johanna Schweizer, Nico Wunderling
This Roadmap, a collaboration between the Cascade Institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, presents a…
Our Polycrisis Demands a Radically New Approach to Risk Management
Ruth Richardson
Ruth Richardson discusses how current tools and strategies are not designed to assess the types of systemic risks that we currently face. The author calls on policymakers to drive a…
Our polycrisis demands a radically new approach to risk management
Ruth Richardson
Ruth Richardson, the Executive Director of the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment, argues that the “escalating global polycrisis demands an urgent and transformative shift in how we assess, anticipate, and…
FuturePod Interview with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence
FuturePod
In this episode of FuturePod, host Dr. Peter Hayward speaks with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence of the Cascade Institute about the current global polycrisis, and their recently published…
Positive Pathways report
Michael Lawrence and Megan Shipman
This Cascade Institute report explores how to translate an understanding of polycrises into actionable strategies to alleviate them. It suggests ways in which polycrisis analysis can build on existing approaches…
Causal Loop Diagrams handbook
Michael Lawrence
In this handbook, Cascade Institute Polycrisis Fellow Michael Lawrence explains how to read and draw a causal loop diagrams (CLD)–a systems mapping technique that helps us to think through our…
The Disruption Nexus
Roman Krznaric
Roman Krznaric explores the conditions in which crises lead to transformative societal change. He finds that transformative responses are most common in conditions of war, disaster, revolution, and disruption. The…
About the Resource Library
The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:
- Comment on the polycrisis as a concept and as a present global reality
- Undertake similar analysis using different—but related—concepts
- Analyze crisis interactions among multiple global systems
Though not exhaustive, the Library strives to present a diverse representation of views on different aspects of the polycrisis discussion, and will be updated as that discussion evolves. Search for resources with the keyword search bar, or by using the drop-down menus to filter for type of resource, global systems addressed, and key themes.
World Polycrisis Hangs on US Politics
Hugo Dixon
Hugo Dixon proposes that the “future of Ukraine, world trade, climate change, and relations between superpowers the United States and China depends to a great extent on whether Trump wins…